ABSTRACT
By making World War II a personal event and a sacred one, Vladimir Putin has created a myth and a ritual that elevates him, showing him as the hero-leader defending the Motherland. This chapter revisits earlier work on the creation of this myth while also considering the limits of the hero cult, both for Putin himself and for the nation as a whole. It first analyzes several settings of Putin’s performance of memory that demonstrate his role as dutiful son (in relation to the veterans), as legitimate son of the Leningrad Blockade, as Russian Orthodox son of the Church, and as father to a new generation of girls associated with the military. As these roles have evolved, they have reinforced a masculine image of Putin as a ruler who is both autocrat and a man of the people. Yet that performance may have reached its maximum extent when the Defense Ministry and the Russian Orthodox Church teamed up to create a Cathedral of the Armed Forces that was due to have mosaic representations of Putin and Sergei Shoygu (Defense Minister) under a fresco of the Virgin Mary offering protection. A second limit has come in the quarrels with Poland and other neighboring countries over the origins and course of World War II.
